This was an unusual project that grew entirely from an abstract tangent. Acouple of years ago, I desinged the basic version of the 'goatboy' logo you can see before you. I had no particular use fo it other than as an excercise completed and possible gallery / portfolio piece. Afriedn suggested I show it to Eat Cake' as it was "His kind of thing." - and they were right. We quickly got to be friends and soon set about setting him up using it as a logo on a co-promotional licence. This in turn generated his blogsite - involving me commanding the design aesthetics and individual elements - from banners to font choices and even the flow of extra elements such as widgets and contact forms. Shortly after, he discovered that the original design was not only huge, but also in vector format - meaning it was pefect for t-shirt printing.
Since then, we have embarked not ony on the t-shirts, but also music videos and a few other possibilities. On eof the few things you can ask from a client is undertsanding of your practices, methods and means, and Eat Cake understood completely.
See his photography and video work - as well as the t-shirts and underoos at LINK.
Okay, so this week we were going to focus on environmental concepts. What I got as my challenge was a little different, but served the purpose just as well.
“Time for World War 8, soldier! You mission should take no longer the 90 minutes, in that time you will be required to complete the following objectives:
Theme: Dark, contemporary * Cityscape with ominous undertones * The Invoked will be manifested in the scene somehow, whether it's hiding in shadows or hallucinated in the sky or building windows. * The focus will be on the main character and/or what he is doing. The city revolves around him because it is his hell; nobody sees it through his eyes.
That should be enough for parameters, focus on making this a quality piece that might be used over and over for things like, oh say... a comic book cover for instance. ;);)”
I found it surprisingly hard however - after several basic thumbnail sketches, I was finding the idea of drawing a ;’contemporary’ cityscape with detail and a main character to focus on a bit much for 90s minutes work. Possibly just my mindset - who knows. Everything fell into place however when I went onto DeviantArt searching for a stock image to inspire me. I types ‘a quiet street’ into the engine, and lo and beho0ls, the first image I see is a picture I’m all to familiar with - one I would have gone and taken myself had my camera been working: it was a photo of Stonegate in York. Not only is my one time favourite drinking haunt on the street, but its also a major tourist zone due to the fact it’s the main path to the Minster and its filled with all sorts of small businesses.
The final image isn't quite what it should be - i ran out of time fiddling with ways to get the right feel of 'night lighting' so it's more of a base concept to build upon later - but I do still rather like it and I know ill be working on it soon.
Don’t forget to watch the video, goto the CRASHNEXUS blog to see the final piece and Psynexus’ attached story. LINK
...and also visit Psynexus' own blog to see how the machinations of his mind worked whilst writing the accompanying tale LINK.
ALSO - HERES THE STOCK IMAGE I USED FOR REFERENCE...
This was a great project to work on - with a real buzz about the whole process. The guys knew what they wanted within a certain field of aesthetics, but the direction I found early on seemed to reflect the new body of work they were already beginning to produce. Organic, chaotic projects can really be the best sometimes.
What started out as a base level piece of logo work and MySpace design, soon turned into an entire rebranding project to bring the bands image to a par with their quality sound. Using the same artwork (partially manipulated from photos by Gothic Rose Photography) for the banners, posters, E.P. artwork and MySpace, the band saved an absolute packet. I even animated elements of the artwork for one of the web-banners.
Bitterskies are currently on extended hiatus as the various members follow their individual creative and performance projects, but you can still check them, out on their MySpace. LINK
